It Happened One Night
by vanillafluffy
Summary: Spoilers only if you're not familiar with AHBL. Dean's year is up, he's waiting at a crossroads, when along comes a hellhound and a roadtrip ensues. No relation whatsoever to the Clark Gable movie of the same name. The thrilling conclusion is now up!
1. Chapter 1

**It Happened One Night**

It's the last night of his life, and he's doing what he's done thousands of times; sat in this seat, reading a newspaper by the feeble illumination of the dome light. There's a donut box on the seat. Dean's polished off four jelly donuts, but there are two maple walnut glaze in the box, because those are what Sam likes, and he wasn't thinking straight when he placed the order.

Out of habit, he circles a couple of screwy news articles, but sets that section aside as he reminds himself that he won't be here to follow up on any cases, and Sam will probably be too upset to work for a while. Okay, so! The crossword puzzle at the crossroads. Just the thing as he waits for the bitch to show...

It's almost midnight. Are demons known for punctuality? It probably depends. They may leave him cooling his heels, knowing that he's here waiting, but if he was elsewhere tonight---if he looked like he was having fun---then they'd be on him like white on rice. Dean hears something outside the car, and opens the door. He'd rather have a few blood spatters on his baby than have the hellhounds trash her trying to get to him.

Yeah, it's a hellhound, and the red-eyed son-of-a-bitch is lifting his leg on one of the Impala's back tires. "Hey!" Dean bellows "What do you think you're doing?" Without regard for his personal safety---because, after all, his lifespan can be numbered in minutes at this point---he lunges forward and swats the beast across the nose with the rolled-up newspaper. "You can rip my throat out, but you can not! piss! on! my! car!"

Steam is rising from the wet sidewall, and Dean snaps. Never mind that it looks like Spuds McKenzie on steroids and has teeth like chisels. He grabs the infernal canine by the snout and rubs its nose in the puddle. "No!" he roars at it. "Bad dog!"

Clearly, the hellhound isn't used to being challenged. It looks astonished, and Dean, who grew up roughhousing with a succession of Bobby's junkyard dogs, flips it onto its back and grips the scruff of its neck, demonstrating to the beast how defenseless it is in this position.

The hellhound whines.

Dean releases it and steps back, allowing it to get back to its feet. "Do not mess with the car, got it?" he demands. He smacks the hellhound with the paper again, and it's a damn quick learner, because it hits the dirt and rolls over, exposing its belly.

"Reject!" Dean scoffs, reaching out to scratch it. "What happened, you flunked out of mauling-the-damned school?" With unerring accuracy, born of years of scuffling with salvage yard mutts, he finds the sweet spot and watches as the dog's back leg jerks convulsively. "You are so easy!"

This might not be so bad, if he's got the pooch in his corner when he gets to the Other Side. Even if it does seem to be kinda wimpy as hellhounds go. Crap. Hopefully its mistress won't construe that as a serious attempt to break the deal. He was defending his car, not his life, after all. "Alright, alright, let's get on with it, huh?"

The malefic harbinger rolls over and jumps up, shaking itself off. A moment later, a melodious voice croons, "Good evening, Dean. I see you've met Ragnar." This demon is a hottie---it seems to have a talent for finding cute chicks---and Dean wishes he'd met its host body under more congenial circumstances.

The hellhound in front of him lets out a gruff woof as she continues. "I'm surprised you're still standing. He's the alpha of my little pack, the most feared and ferocious hound in all of Hell."

Yeah, right. Ferocious.

Three more hounds have appeared from the shadows and are prancing by her side, obviously awaiting her command to sic him. In contrast, Ragnar is motionless. Dean has the impression the dog is coiled like a snake getting ready to strike, and when he does, good-bye jugular.

"But you'll find all that out in your new life," she says with a little laugh. "Take him down, boys!"

The three hounds by her side surge forward, but stop when Ragnar snarls at them. They whine and back off.

"You want this kill for yourself, Ragnar?" She smiles. "Okay, Ragnar---get him!"

The hellhound just looks at her.

"What's the matter with you?" she berates the dog. "Get him!"

Ragnar takes three steps toward his pack and barks at them with all the ferocity previously advertised by his mistress. They turn tail and disappear back into the darkness as the alpha snarls at the demon, whose mouth hangs open.

"What did you do to my dog?" she demands, and Dean just shrugs, as surprised as she is.

"Hey, you're the one who said he was the hellhound badass of all time. I can't help it if he likes me. Good boy, Ragnar!"

"I told you what would happen if you tried to break our deal…."

His heart plummets. "Look, he's your dog! You want to take me, fine. I'm here, I'm ready to go, let's do it! Just leave Sam out of it."

"You're both in jeopardy now," she informs him, malice in her tone. "Your brother may be safe in warded space right now, but if he leaves it before sunrise, he's dead meat. And you---you think hellhounds are the worst thing I can summon? I think you'll find out differently very soon."

Then the host body convulses. The demon-essence spews from her mouth, then she slumps to the ground. Ragnar sniffs at her and growls.

"No!" Dean says sharply. His mind is racing. He's still alive, but Sam's in danger. He flips open his cell, but there's no signal.

"Where am I?" the recently-possessed girl asks. "What the hell just happened?"

Calm her down, take her to some place where he can make a phone call, warn Sam…. "You ran out into the road," he says, lying as naturally as breathing. First rule: Don't panic the civilians. "Can I give you a ride somewhere?"

"Bullshit," she says, "I was leaving work---" and Dean's ready to say 'Screw you, too' and bolt for the car. "Something grabbed me in the parking lot…."

"It wasn't me," Dean says. "Do you want a ride or not?"

"You're Dean."

"How did you know that?" he asks, as Ragnar growls deep in his throat.

"I…I just do. We'd better get out of here."

The girl's name is Corrine, and she looks askance at Ragnar, who's hanging his huge head over the back of the front seat.

Dean guns the motor and peels out. He notices with a sinking feeling, that there's less than a quarter of a tank registering on the fuel gauge. There's got to be a gas station around here somewhere.

Too much fatalism, he thinks with savage irony. He didn't bother to fill the tank, because the crossroads was going to be his last stop. Hadn't charged his phone, because the idea of getting cell reception in Hell was a joke. Picked a place out in the middle of Nowhere, Montana, because of Rule #2: Civilian casualties are unacceptable. Stupid, stupid, stupid!

"What the hell---? What did---? Was I _possessed_?" Corrine demands, her tone somewhere between panic and indignation. It's rare for a host to remember being possessed, although it might be because so many of them don't survive exorcism. Then too, possession isn't a medically recognized condition, so a lot of them get locked up as schizophrenic. The demon left voluntarily in this case, maybe that's why.

All things considered, she's handling this pretty well for a civilian---even Ragnar, whose glowing red eyes are kinda putting Dean off up close. The hellhound is slobbering down the back of the seat, and Dean's almost sure the vinyl is smoking—and not in a good way.

"Dude, try a Tic-Tac," he says to the hound, who tilts his head in perplexity. "Lie down, will ya?"

He checks the cell, which hasn't magically charged in the last three seconds. "Yeah," he says, "you were possessed. I hear that really sucks. There's some aspirin in the glove box."

She's wary enough to turn on the dome light for a closer inspection of the tablets, and damn! If she looked good in black and white, she's a knockout in color: tawny hair curls around her face, and even with great bone structure, it's her big brown eyes that are her most outstanding feature.

"You want to explain all this?" Corrine asks after she's dry-swallowed some aspirin and put back the bottle, and no, the damn phone still hasn't charged.

For a moment the car is quiet except for the wind rushing though the windows and the sound of Ragnar rustling around in the back seat. "Demons exist," Dean says, his voice flat. "I've been hunting them most of my life, me and my dad and my brother, ever since a demon killed my mom." She gasps, but doesn't say anything. "Dad died two years ago, and then, a year ago tonight, my brother Sam was murdered."

"How terrible! But---that…that demon, I could hear it thinking---"

"I made a deal with it," Dean interrupts. "My brother's life in exchange for my soul, to be surrendered in one year. That year was up tonight. Now it's found an excuse to try to claim us both, and that's not gonna happen. I have to warn him."


	2. Chapter 2

The fuel gauge has dropped almost visibly. He tries not to do this to his girl---the crap at the bottom of the tank clogs the fuel filters---but he's going to be on fumes by the time they get to the nearest gas station, which by his reckoning is about another eighteen miles.

No, still no phone.

"But enough about me. Let's talk about you," he says, hoping to distract himself from his own churning anxiety. "You said it grabbed you as you were leaving work. What is it you do?"

"I'm in retail," she explains, "assistant manager at the Pelts Leathermore store in Springfield." She sounds more animated as she goes on, "That jacket you're wearing? That's our hipster, model 11267. Yours is vintage; we discontinued it in brown back in the early Eighties."

"I got it secondhand." She's way too calm about all this, or maybe she's just got world-class denial going on. "And you were leaving work and what happened?"

"I closed that night. When I went out to my car, there wasn't anyone nearby. I know where the cameras are focused, and I always park under a light. I had some plastic from one of the displays that I was going to take home and recycle, so I had my trunk open, and I was trying to get it in there…then everything went black. All of a sudden, I couldn't breathe. I thought I was being abducted, that it was a bag, or chloroform, but there was no one there!"

Her voice has gone up in pitch---she's not calm anymore---and Dean regards her from the corner of his eye. "Corrine, don't freak out on me," he orders her. "I'll find a safe place to drop you off, but right now, you gotta suck it up."

"Thank you, Dr. Dean," she says acidly. "That was a wonderful, sensitive pep talk. I'm impressed. Not!"

Dean almost smiles at that. "As a matter of fact---" Just then, there's a bang that feels like they ran over a landmine, and the unmistakable thud-thud-thud of a flat tire. He grips the wheel, taking his foot off the gas and easing the Impala to the side of the road.

It doesn't improve his temper to see that the tire that went was the one Ragnar peed on. He pops the trunk, grabs the spare, the jack and lug wrench, and after a moment's reflection, the normal Colt---he left the special one at Bobby's. "I need you to cover my back while I'm changing that flat," he tells Corrine, who's gone pale at the sight of the gun he's holding out. "Hold the gun with both hands, and squeeze the trigger if anything nasty shows up. Don't just shoot at random. That's loaded with silver bullets, and they aren't cheap."

He wedges the jack under the frame and starts levering it up. The ground here is cold and hard, the jack doesn't shift, and Dean pumps the handle for all he's worth. Sam is safe at Bobby's, that's what it meant by warded space, but do they know where that space is, or is he just off the grid?

"Silver bullets? Really?" She's scanning the area, shifting from one foot to another as she slowly rotates, looking for trouble. "I thought that was just from old Lon Cheney movies. I thought you were supposed to use salt."

The car is jacked up, and he almost drops the lug wrench at her words. "How come you know all this stuff? You're a civilian!"

"When I was ten, we moved into a new house---new for us, anyway. It wasn't just built. And stuff started happening, like---someone's coming."

She's right. Far distant pinpoints of light signal a vehicle coming from the same direction they did, and Dean picks up the pace, breaking loose the lug nuts. This is the first other vehicle he's seen since arriving at the crossroads---it might be a coincidence, but then again, it might not.

By the time it reaches their position, he's got the old wheel off and the spare on the lugs, and he's tightening the bolts as fast as he can. It's a jacked-up 4x4, and the guy who gets out is big and beefy. "You folks need some help?" he wants to know, not seeming to notice the gun Corrine has leveled at him.

"Got it covered, thanks," Dean replies, torquing down the last nut.

The tall man comes closer. "Are you sure? I've got a---"

There's a thunderous valley of barks, and the hellhound squirms out of Dean's open window and attacks the would-be Samaritan. "Ragnar!" shouts the figure as it grapples with the hound, and if he's on a first-name basis with the hellhound, that proves the motorist is up to no good.

The lugs are tight enough that the wheels aren't gonna fall off; Dean starts lowering the jack as fast as he can. Yanks it out from under the car and grabs that and the wrench in one hand and man-handles the flat into the trunk. Possessed asshole or no, it never crosses Dean's mind to abandon a $200 rim on the roadside.

Ragnar has driven the trucker back, and he's trying to get into his vehicle as the hellhound snarls and snaps at him.

"Come on!" Dean barks at Corrine, who's standing, staring at the man versus hellhound fight. She looks wildly at him, then raises the pistol and puts a bullet into the truck's front grill.

"Radiator," she says as Dean grabs the gun away from her. Which makes sense, actually. It's a pricey way to go about it, but he's not gonna bitch.

Dean whistles sharply. "Ragnar! Come on!"

Ragnar lopes back to the car and hops into the rear seat, looking as happy as a golden retriever playing fetch. Glancing in, Dean notices that the donut box is shredded in the wheel-wells, but a couple maple-glazed donuts are a small price to pay his four-legged bodyguard.

The Impala shudders as it pulls out onto the asphalt. Dean winces; the needle is grazing the upper edge of the "E". A check of the rearview shows the truck is still stationary behind them. "Come on, baby," he pleads. "Just a few more miles!"

No such luck. They stall, and Dean gets as much distance as he can out of their momentum before braking. There's gas in their salt-and-burn can, barely enough to wet the bottom of the tank, and when that's gone, they're screwed….

By the time the lights of the service plaza appear in the distance, the needle is running on empty. Dean grabs the phone. It's charged and still not getting a signal! Freakin' BFE with no cell towers. There's gotta be a pay phone here, right? Gotta be. Call Sam, warn him not to leave the house unless it's on fire---and if he does, make sure he has the special Colt.

They're turning into the plaza when the Impala coughs mildly and the engine dies. Dean wrestles with the steering and manages to coast up beside a pump. "Corrine---get us pumped while I make a call. And don't forget to fill the gas can!" He swipes Glenn Tipton's credit card in the slot, hits the panel for premium and bolts for the blue and white logo at the far side of the station.

The phone doesn't have a dial tone. He feeds a couple quarters into it just in case, but no dice, it's dead, and he's starting to think they really are out to get him. Which means going inside could get fairly hairy, but he's tucked the Colt into his waistband under his jacket, so he's not completely unprotected. And maybe, just maybe, they'll be normal civilians in there and he can make a phone call and save his brother's life.

He turns around and almost trips over Ragnar. Either he got out through the window, or Corrine let him out while she was getting the gas can from the backseat, but either way, Dean's glad for the back-up. There are only two vehicles in the lot, a rusted-out Ford Fairmont and a twenty-year old Chrysler minivan. Dean breathes a sigh of relief to himself---neither of these things is gonna keep up with his baby. Once she's got a tankful, they'll be good to go.

The station isn't any kind of franchise; it probably serves as a general store to the locals. When he pushes the door open, Ragnar surges in ahead of him, sniffing. There are a couple of good old boys sitting at a card table at the back of the store. One of them is wearing a shirt with "Kevin" stitched on the pocket, the other has on a denim jacket.

"Excuse me," Dean says, giving them his best attempt at a smile, "but your pay phone's out of order. I've got an emergency---"

"I don't care what kind of emergency you've got, you can't have that dog in here," Kevin says. "What the hell kind of dog is that, anyway?"

"That dog saved my life," Dean responds. "He's a, uh, Transylvanian mastiff."

The man in the denim jacket starts to wheeze, as if laughing at Dean's answer. It quickly becomes evident that it isn't funny; he's clutching his chest, like he's having a heart attack, but Ragnar is tense and growling.

"Joe, what's wrong?" Kevin yells, as Joe stands up. There's something happening---his hands are glowing red, like there's a strong light behind them, then his face distorts with pain and starts to melt. His clothes are smoking; they erupt into flame. Kevin tries to hose him down with a shaken bottle of soda, only to be batted across the room.

Dean yanks the door open. This isn't something he wants to stick around for. Ragnar is running for the car, and if whatever got Joe is bad enough to scare the hellhound, he wants no part of it.

Corrine has been turning to survey the area while she was pumping---once possessed, forever shy, apparently---and he sees the look of horror on her face when she looks their way. She stops pumping, puts the hose back and is opening the passenger side door by the time he gets there. Ragnar zooms through the driver's door ahead of Dean and scrambles into the back seat.

When they coasted in, they wound up facing the station, so Dean gets a good look at the twisted figure that's come out of the store while he's cranking the Impala. Its form is the orange-red of hot coals, flickering blue where the eyes should be, with a suggestion of darker bones beneath.

It doesn't try to run after them; it's getting into Joe's Fairlane, and Dean pulls the M1911 out from under his jacket and hands it to Corrine. "If you can take out his radiator, do it," he tells her as he hits the gas.

"Do I look like Annie Oakley?" she retorts, rolling down her window. "Last time I was ten feet away and we weren't moving!"

* * *

Comments are shiny. 


	3. Chapter 3

They're on the highway, heading southeast toward Bobby's place, and the Fairmont's lights maintain a steady distance behind them. It's almost 300 highway miles to Bobby's, and it's…Dean blinks at his watch. 1:08 AM? Incredible. But it's an hour and seven minutes longer than he expected to live, and he's got a long way to go before sunrise.

The Impala's tank is a little over three-quarters full, which should get them most of the way there. Dean stomps his boot down on the pedal, and the big block growls as it accelerates. "There's another gun under your seat. Get it out, it's got more stopping power."

The Fairmont falls farther and farther behind as Corrine fishes out the Desert Eagle and Dean instructs her how to check the clip and where the safety is. His stomach is in a knot, and he almost wishes he hadn't had that last jelly donut.

Sam, oh God…. Dean's lived under a death sentence for a year, and now to find out that he may have inadvertently doomed his brother after all? It would be easy for the other side to lure him out of the house---cause a disturbance out in the salvage yard, maybe. Sam and Bobby are almost surely awake---probably _holding_ a wake, for crying out loud---so make enough noise to suggest prowlers, and Bobby would be out there with a shotgun, and Sam right behind him….

"I think we lost him---it," Corrine says. She's been leaning against the back of the seat, watching out the rear window.

"Good," he says with satisfaction. They're doing eighty-five, which is well over the speed limit, and he's already working on the story he's gonna give any cop that stops him for speeding, God forbid he has to. A dying grandma in Rapid City, maybe.

"Um, Dean, if we've lost him…would this be a bad time to say I really have to tinkle?"

"Are you serious? Now?"

"Well, I didn't get a chance to back there," she points out.

"Hold it a while longer," he says, speeding up to ninety. "If we stop now, he'll catch up to us right around the time you have your panties down around your ankles."

Corrine gives a moan of discomfort and shifts in her seat.

"Tell me the rest of the story," Dean suggests. "About the house you moved into."

"My folks were both big time do-it-yourselfers," she begins, "and they found this historic house for cheap. We moved in, and at first it was cool. The house was built in 1884, and Mom and Dad were great about using that as a teaching tool. Like, what was going on in history at that time, and what everyday life would've been like, and there was lots of interesting junk in the attic and cellar.

"They started working on fixing it up, and weird things started happening. Some of it seemed like it could be normal old house problems---doors sticking, lights flickering, thumps and noises. We made jokes that the house was haunted, but then stuff started happening that wasn't funny, and we couldn't explain them.

"Like, something smashed out the windows in Micah's room with a baseball bat---except he was at school, and my mom was the only one home. It tore up the curtains and smeared dirt on the linens in my parents' room. It ripped our clothes while they were hanging in the closet. We'd come home, and the refrigerator door would be open and the food was thrown all over the kitchen. Dad changed all the locks, twice, but it didn't do any good."

"It sounds like it was targeting your mom. Except for the window smashing, that's all domestic stuff. Mending clothes and washing bedding---that's women's work, and messing up her kitchen would also be an assault on her territory. And don't tell me I'm being a chauvinist---I'm willing to bet your ghost never heard of women's lib."

"That's exactly what he said."

"He who?" At least she isn't pestering him to pull over.

"It was during Easter holidays," she recalls. "This man came to our house and said he heard from someone at our church that we were having problems. He walked around with an EMF meter---I didn't know what it was, but I've watched a bunch of those ghost hunter documentaries since then---and did a blessing. A big, filmy mass came out of the walls right there in the living room, and he shot it with rock salt.

"It disappeared, and the man said we needed to research who was haunting us and why. He spent a couple days at the library and the historical society, and he found out there was a housekeeper who'd been let go for seducing the son of the man who built the house. She was supposed to be packing her bags, but instead she took poison and died. And because it was olden days, there was a family cemetery out in the woods behind the house, and she was buried there."

"Things settled down after your hunter salted and burned the bones, didn't they?"

"That's right! My folks were so relieved, I think they would've given him anything, but all he wanted was a donation to the church that was big enough to cover his expenses."

"Wait a minute---this guy, was he tall and thin? Salt and pepper hair? Driving an old blue sedan with Minnesota plates?"

Corrine frowns with thought. "I guess. He was as tall as my dad…he did have a blue car, and they were out-of-state plates. I forget where he was from, but his son and my brother and me built a tree house in our backyard. That's when we found the cemetery---why?"

Because that totally sounds like Pastor Jim. Except for the part about his son. "He reminds me of an old friend of the family. Did you---"

In the backseat, Ragnar coughs and starts yarking.

That ranks an emergency stop, 'rank' being the operative word. Dean eases up on the gas and veers to the side of the road.

"Great, you'll stop because the dog is sick---and I use the word 'dog' loosely---but---"

"You needed to pee? Go pee. Fast, while I clean his mess up."

"_Here_?!"

"Hurry the hell up!" She reluctantly gets out of the vehicle and walks a few paces farther back from the road. Dean investigates Ragnar's spew. The steaming mass on the floor mat has a couple half-digested fingers in it, and Dean swallows hard against nausea. If this is a normal part of a hellhound's diet, then he'd just as soon not contribute to it.

He grabs the whole mat and dumps the nasty contents on the ground. Ragnar is moving around the car, sniffing and Dean says sternly, "No tires!"

With a wounded look, the dog steps out onto the highway and squats, and Dean would swear he sees the asphalt melting from the dog's waste. He grabs some rags from the trunk to wipe off the floor mat and pours holy water on it, hoping it'll neutralize whatever it comes into contact with. It appears to boil for a moment, and when the reaction stops, there's a visible splotch of erosion on the vinyl. He rolls down the back window to help dissipate the smell.

This is as good a time as any for a pit stop. He does a 360 on their surroundings before unzipping.

There's a gasp from Corrine. "Hey, you're not the only one having kidney failure," he tells her. "Trust me, even if I was interested in you, this isn't the time or the place."

"He's coming," she says, and sure enough, there are headlights a mile or so back. He finishes what he was doing, gets himself squared away, and heads for the trunk.

"Start the car. No, you're not driving, just get our motor running and slide over. Ragnar! In!"

Focusing on the oncoming car though a rifle sight, Dean sees it's the Fairmont, which is by now an inferno with wheels. He doesn't trust this demon asshole not to just plow right into the Impala, so he lines up on the car and takes his first shot. Nothing happens. He works the bolt and shoots again, and this time, the lights jerk to one side. But it's not stopping.

The rifle goes in through the open window, and Dean barely has the door closed when he shifts into drive and floors it. They fishtail back onto the road, and by now the flaming rust-bucket is only a few hundred yards away and closing. It has momentum, and they don't.

The damned thing draws along side them. The Impala is doing fifty when it bumps them solidly on the passenger side. Corrine cries out as the fire demon leers at her and Dean fights to keep them on the road. "This would be a really good time to shoot it!" he shouts at Corrine, who's fumbling with the safety. "Hey, you son-of-a-bitch, leave my car out of this!"

The Desert Eagle booms twice, and the Fairmont drops back. As the Impala's acceleration kicks in, the other car crosses the center line behind them and Dean watches it rolling, a spectacular tumbleweed bouncing across the prairie until it blossoms into an impressive fireball.

* * *


	4. Chapter 4

"Way to go, Annie Oakley! Don't forget to put on the safety," Dean adds as Corrine lowers the hand cannon.

"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder," she says, and her voice is trembling.

He reaches out to pat her on the shoulder, and she flinches away. "What's the matter with you? I'm one of the good guys, remember?"

"It's not---it's not you, it's just---that thing, when it was in me, it did things…it used me to do things, things that I wouldn't do---"

Sam is better at this kind of thing. Dean's uncomfortable with weeping women, and he likes her a lot better when she's being snappy. 'That's what demons do," he tells her quietly. "They mess with your head, whether they're inside it or not. My dad…my dad got possessed. He used to be a Marine, he was a hunter for more than twenty years…the demon that killed our mom got inside him and he almost killed me."

Is she listening? She doesn't seem to be crying as much. "There's something I read a million years ago in English class, and I didn't understand it then. It was something about, each man kills the thing he loves most…I think whoever wrote that knew more about demons than they let on, because that's what demons do. You think you're a certain kind of person, and they get in there and terrible things happen. And even though you didn't do it, you have to live with the fallout."

Dad almost killed him, and said things that still replay themselves on nights when sleep won't come. Sam not only murdered someone, he attacked a good friend. And now…. What's he going to do if he lives and Sam dies, after all this?

"I might---" Corrine takes a deep breath. "I could be pregnant. Maybe I caught a disease. And I caused a scene at this convenience store...the police might be looking for me."

"Look, you need to do a Scarlett O'Hara. Worry about it tomorrow, if tomorrow ever comes."

She sniffles and rummages in the glove box. She comes up with a handful of paper napkins that she uses to blow her nose in, and Dean's cell. "It looks like you've got a signal."

Grabbing the phone from her, he speed-dials Sam…and gets voice mail. "Sam! Whatever you do, don't leave the house before sunrise! I'm on my way there now, I'm about two hours out, I'll be there as fast as I can. I know you probably weren't expecting to hear from me---it's a long story."

Two hours? He does some mile-marker math and divides it by their speed, and he may have over-estimated it by a little bit, though he wants to drop Corrine off somewhere along the way.

To be on the safe side, he rings Bobby's landline.

"The number you have dialed is experiencing technical difficulties---"

Crap.

He pictures the house under siege, in flames, Bobby torn apart, blackness filling his brother's eyes and Sam lashing out because he thinks Dean is dead and there's nothing left to lose.

It's almost three-thirty, and the Impala's tank is getting low again. He finds a last-chance-gas place in Hammond, and he fills it up. It doesn't have pay-at-the-pump, so he has to go inside. Thankfully, the clerk is a civilian. She looks up from her book of Sudoku and frowns at Ragnar, but don't comment. Ragnar is equally disdainful, but cheers up when Dean pays for a box of donuts along with the gas.

Dean tries to convince Corrine that it's safer for her to stay here then to come with him, but she won't even get out of the car.

"For one thing, where the hell is Hammond, Montana? It's the middle of nowhere, it's four states away from where I live, and I have no money. What am I supposed to do, hitchhike home? And what if it gets me again? I'd rather die than go through that again!"

He tries to explain the reality of what he's up against. "This place I'm going is way off the beaten track, and there's gonna be a lot more weirdness going there. More things like that fire demon, maybe."

The harsh fluorescent lights in the parking lot fade her caramel curls to dull wood shavings. Her Bambi-brown eyes are anxious, and her gaze darts warily to the shadows beyond the asphalt expanse. "Please, Dean," she beseeches. "I'll do whatever you say, I won't cry anymore. Please! I don't feel safe alone."

He's looking at the damage her side of the car has taken, and ouch. His poor baby is going to take some putting back together…again. Ragnar sniffs at the box of donuts, and Dean raises it over his head. The hellhound puts his paws on Dean's shoulders, scenting fried sugar.

"Quit it!" he orders as the beast tries to lick him. Ragnar obediently drops to all fours, but continues to look up with anticipation plain on his face.

"Oh, hell," he mutters, opening the box. Ragnar straightens up, his glowing eyes brightening. Dean flings the treat like a Frisbee, going for distance, and the hellhound gallops off after it. He looks back at Corrine. "What about your family?"

She shakes her head, a drooping sunflower. "They're gone. My dad had heart failure and my mom died of breast cancer. My brother's in the Navy. Please, Dean---"

Those eyes would put Sammy's puppy-dog look to shame. At the thought of his brother, Dean feels a needle of panic. It's four AM, he doesn't have time---Sam doesn't have time for him to stand here arguing.

They hit the road again. Corrine has a donut, Dean has two, and Ragnar gets the rest. "If you hurl again, I'm strapping you to the roof," Dean tells him.

"The scary thing is, he really does understand you," comments Corrine. She's huddled in her seat, hugging herself for warmth.

Dean's not about to roll up the windows---he figures Ragnar needs the fresh air---but he cranks the heater and, as an afterthought, shrugs out of his jacket and offers it to her. "Yeah, I got that impression. You mind if I play some tunes?"

"Whatever helps keep you awake," she yawns as he searches for a signal.

If anyone had told Dean Winchester yesterday that he'd live past midnight, he would've been skeptical. If anyone had told him that he'd spend the early morning hours speeding down a deserted highway in the company of a hellhound and an ex-demon host/damsel-in-distress, he would've said that was insane.

He fiddles with the radio and tunes in the oldies station Bobby likes--- they're getting close. "Mama, don't let your baby grow up to be the Antichrist," he sings along, and sighs.

He knows the roads around here---they've been coming to Bobby's since he was knee-high to a hubcap---and he races toward the closest thing he's had to a stationary home in all that time. It's ten past five, less than an hour 'til sunrise, and he tries not to think of carnage, of the possible bloodbath that may await him.

The sky is beginning to be more gray than black. He's turning off the main road onto the dirt track that leads to Singer Salvage when it sees it, and slams on the brakes.

Ragnar thumps heavily against the back of his seat, and Corrine comes awake with a whimper. "Son of a bitch," Dean breathes. He remembers something his dad said about assault tactics, how just before dawn is when you're most likely to have surprise on your side.

There's a massive funnel cloud spinning in the near-distance, probably about as far from Bobby's as they are, but Dean's money is on the Impala.

"I'm going to pull around the back," he says as they rocket down the lane. "I'll lean on the horn to wake them up, if they're not already, and I want you to scoot for the door. If anybody inside looks like they're gonna try to stop you, yell 'Sanctuary'. Got it?"

It doesn't go as planned. He's right that the twister isn't approaching quite as fast as they have, but he'd swear it's gotten bigger. And then Corrine discovers

"It won't open!" she wails. "It must've gotten jammed when that thing bumped us!"

Dean jumps out of the car and hauls her bodily across the seat as the back door opens.

"Dean?!"

"Stay there, Sam! Stay inside the house! There's a funnel cloud coming!"

Bobby has joined Sam in the doorway as Corrine bolts across the porch. "Sanctuary!" she hollers, and they let her in.

Dean's grabbing the firepower---just in case---as soon as he sees Dean moving toward the house, Ragnar dashes ahead of him toward the door.

Bobby, who's always prepared, is leveling his shotgun when Corrine knocks it up.

Ragnar gets as far as the salt line, and bounces back on his haunches. He whines and tries to follow Dean inside, but it isn't gonna happen.

"Ragnar, guard the car!" Dean tells him. He'd rather have the hellhound in there with them, but the odds that Bobby's gonna break the salt line to let him in are about the same as Sammy Sasquatch dancing ballet. In a tutu.

* * *


	5. Chapter 5

They're crowded into Bobby's kitchen, Bobby staring at the door as if he expects the hellhound to come crashing through it. Corrine still clutches Dean's leather jacket. Sam's mouth is hanging open. "Dean, how did you---?"

"There's a Godzilla twister coming," Dean warns them. "We need to take cover!"

"Cellar," says Bobby tersely. They thunder down the stairs, then Bobby turns and starts to go back up. "Inky's still outside." There's a sudden howl of wind, and Bobby stops, looking grave. "Poor damn dog. And for that matter, what the hell did you think you were doing, bringing a hellhound here, Dean? Are you out of your mind?"

"I thought…I thought the year was up at midnight," Sam stammers. "What happened?"

"That hellhound saved my life," Dean boasts, grinning. "He took a liking to me. And, being the alpha, he scared off the rest of the pack, which really pissed off the demon." He lowers his voice somberly "She said I'd double-crossed her, and that made you fair game if you stepped out of warded space before sunrise."

Bobby's cellar is the hunter's equivalent of a fallout shelter, but instead of sandbags, he's got bags of rock-salt lining the walls. There are wards painted everywhere, and it's well-stocked for disasters of every sort. Short of peeling the house from on top of them, nothing is going to get them here, and Dean experiences a wave of relief that leaves him shaking.

The lights flicker and go out, and overhead, it sounds like Ground Zero for World War III. It's either going to rip the house off its foundation or drop it on top of them. Something thuds against one wall, probably one of the sheds, or at least a roof.

Dean has two handguns and the rifle, but the cellar is totally dark, and he wouldn't know what to shoot at if there was a disturbance. He hears Corrine hyperventilating, someone moving around…it turns out to be Bobby, who flicks a match and lights a kerosene lantern.Bobby's eyeing him, and Dean shrugs.

"I'll knock back some holy water, if you want. It's really me, Bobby. I'm sorry I brought all this trouble your way, but I was afraid it would lure you guys outside. The whole way here, it was all I could think."

From the creaking and groaning above them, it sounds like the whole house is liable to land on their heads, and Dean winces. "Damn, I hope you've got insurance."

"Insurance?" the old hunter scoffs. "Sure, they'll hand me a fistful of money, but that's not going to replace eight hundred and sixteen volumes on demonology and folklore. Or Inky." Bobby's recently adopted Newfoundland was as a favor to a neighbor who was retiring to Florida and thought the heat would be too much for the heavy-coated black dog. The black dog jokes had been fierce, but the dog herself wasn't.

Corrine is crouched down against a pile of salt sacks, and she's got the jacket pulled up to her ears, like a turtle cowering in its shell. Dean's glad to see his brother is on the job, because he's over the whole pat-on-the-back-poor-baby thing. "Hi, I'm Sam, Dean's brother. Let me guess, you met him at some crossroads, and you don't remember how you got there."

"I'm Corrine, and I remember way too much about how I got there." Her voice is shaking, and Sam's wearing his concerned look. He covers her hand with one of his and says something in a low voice. She nods, and he nods back, and a quiet conversation develops.

"Leave it to you to find a pretty girl at a crossroads at midnight," the older man says, shaking his head in bemusement at the scene. "You sure she's okay?"

"Yeah, she is. We had some donuts on the way here, and she washed 'em down with holy water." Dean recounts the night's strange events, from Ragnar switching sides to the flaming Fairlane.

Over by the salt bags, Sam has Corrine engaged in conversation. She's looking animated, and a lot less like she's going to go into shock. They're probably comparing notes on being possessed, or something.

"Do you think it's really that simple?" Dean asks their mentor. "Survive 'til sunrise and the deal is broken?"

"Could be," Bobby says cautiously, thinking about it. "If I were you, I'd stay the hell away from any crossroads at midnight from now on, just in case."

Dean nods. Maybe he's still on the hook for his afterlife, but if he survives tonight, he may not have to worry about that for another forty years or so. Works for him.

"What a second!" Sam exclaims. "Is his name Mike?"

"Micah." Corrine answers. Her face is lit up, and she's happier than Dean's seen her so far.

"That's it! And you did ballet!"

"For a few years. Oh my God, that's amazing!"

"What's so amazing over there?"

"We've met!" Sam is practically wagging his tail, he's so happy. "One year when you and Dad parked me at Pastor Jim's for spring break, he took me along when he went after a poltergeist. Wow! It's great to see you again. That treehouse---"

The wind stops, and the abrupt hush is almost shocking. Dean looks at his watch. It's 6:14 AM, six-and-a-quarter hours longer than he expected to live. "Think that means it's sun-up?"

"I'd say so."

Before going upstairs, they get armed. Bobby's still got his shotgun, Dean follows him with the regular Colt, Corrine gets the Desert Eagle again, while Sam flanks them with the special Colt. The house is still standing, although there's broken glass and debris all over the place. Glancing into the living room, it looks like the porch collapsed, and the roof acted as a barrier to protect Bobby's library. The kitchen is a mess---there's a window broken, faint sunlight giving a rosy hue to the sky---the table and chairs are overturned and a length of 4x4 bars the way to the back door like a turnstile.

There's a hole in the window set into the back door, and the screen door has multiple tears. It doesn't seem as if any of the windows have survived, and Bobby's expression as he views the devastation is sour. "Insurance," he mutters. "Only thing worse than insurance men is lawyers."

"Or demons," Sam interjects, sounding huffy at the slur to his would-be profession.

"Not necessarily. But at least the wards held. Your twister danced all around the place, and bounced everything it could at it, but it'd be a pile of toothpicks, otherwise."

One of the sheds has landed on the Impala---could be worse, could be a semi, Dean thinks ruefully. There's a tree on top of the wrecker, but Bobby's old Chevelle doesn't look noticeably crappier than it already did.

Bobby puts his fingers to his mouth and lets loose a piercing whistle. "Inky!" he shouts. There's no sign of the black dog.

"Ragnar?" Dean calls. A sheet of crumpled tin slides off the roof of the Impala. Dean grits his teeth. The car itself rocks. "What the hell?"

Ragnar is squirming out from under the vehicle, and stops, shouldering it so Inky can squeeze past. It's like watching a gentleman hold a door for a lady. Inky isn't quite as large as the hellhound---and doesn't have glowing red eyes. They make a cute couple. "Talk about your strange bedfellows," says Bobby as Inky pads up to him for a pat on the head.

The hellhound is delighted to see Dean. He offers his belly to be scratched. "Some hellhound!" remarks Sam. He's standing a few feet away, still holding the Colt, definitely outside of the house---and he's still standing. They both are---and all it took was daylight.

"It's gonna be a pretty day," Bobby comments, looking toward the sunrise.

Dean nods agreement. It's the first day of the rest of his life.

The End.

* * *

This story is subtitled "The Crack!fic That Grew a Plot", because originally it was going to be a one scene ficlet based on this: 

Ragnar, the red-eyed hellhound  
was the baddest hellhound of all.  
And he would be glad to gnaw you,  
if his mistress gave him the call.

All of the other hellhounds  
used to hide from his sight.  
They all knew of Ragnar  
and were terrified of his bite.

Then one foggy Crossroads Eve  
Dean-o came to say:  
"Ragnar with your eyes so bright,  
don't you piss on my tires tonight!"

He made all the hellhounds fear him  
as they yelped and ran away with fleas,  
And the mistress of the red-eyed hellhound,  
went down---but not in history!

* * *

Thanks for coming along for the ride. Comments are shiny. Happy New Year! 


End file.
